Rainbow Six Siege Operation Split Fire Is Live: Noor, Patch Notes, and New Modes

Rainbow Six Siege Operation Split Fire launched on September 1, 2026. The Year 11 Season 3 update adds Defender Noor and his shield-piercing Horus Lance, moves Villa’s Living Room and Library bomb site into the basement, changes several weapons and Operators, and prepares limited-time 3v3 and drone-racing modes. Legend Division is not available at launch; Ubisoft says that SoloQ playlist opens mid-season.

Operation Split Fire at a glance

• Release date: September 1, 2026.
• Season: Rainbow Six Siege Year 11 Season 3.
• New Operator: Noor, a Defender with five Horus Lance projectiles.
• Map change: Villa’s Living Room and Library site moves to the basement, and the garage becomes interior space.
• Legend Division: SoloQ only and scheduled to open mid-season, not September 1.
• Limited-time content: 3v3 Arcade and a three-week Wasteland Circuit drone-racing event.
• Battle Pass window: September 1 through December 1 on Ubisoft’s official Siege page.

What is live now, and what arrives later?

The season update itself is live. Noor, the main balance pass, the targeted Villa update, new onboarding protections, the options redesign, graphics defaults, and the Y11S3 fixes are all presented as Operation Split Fire changes. Existing players should update the game through their normal platform before checking the new season content.

Some features have separate timing. Ubisoft explicitly places Legend Division at mid-season. It calls 3v3 Arcade a limited-time playlist and Wasteland Circuit a three-week event, but the season page does not publish exact start and end dates for either one. That distinction matters: they are announced for Operation Split Fire, but players should use the in-game playlist screen for the live calendar.

How Noor and the Horus Lance work

Noor is an Egyptian Defender designed to break the momentum of shield-led attacks. His Horus Lance Launcher carries five projectiles. A projectile can pierce a ballistic shield or a destructible surface and then create fire on the far side, forcing an Attacker to move or abandon a protected plant position.

The line-of-sight possibilities are broader than a direct hallway shot. Ubisoft says the projectile works through floors and ceilings and from an adjacent room. It can also travel through Castle Armor Panels and Azami Kiba Barriers. That makes the gadget useful for denying a default plant, punishing a shield holding a doorway, or setting fire to a route without exposing Noor to the same angle.

Because the launcher has five shots, the practical decision is not simply whether a surface can be pierced. Save projectiles for a shield push, a late-round plant, or an area that Attackers must cross. Firing every charge at early sound cues gives the attacking team more freedom once the round reaches its final seconds.

Noor’s full loadout

• Primary weapons: Commando 9 assault rifle or ALDA 5.56 light machine gun.
• Secondary weapons: 1911 TACOPS or Bailiff 410.
• Secondary gadgets: Deployable Shield or Barbed Wire.

The Commando 9 is the more compact rifle option, while the ALDA 5.56 favors sustained fire and a larger magazine. The Bailiff can create small lines of sight and rotation holes, which suits a Defender whose unique gadget already rewards playing through walls, floors, and ceilings.

The biggest Operation Split Fire balance changes

• Dokkaebi: Her Jegeo Payload now needs a constant connection; interrupting the signal cancels the upload. Impact EMP Grenades are removed and Breach Charges are added.
• Kali and the CSRX 300: scope options move from 5x/12x to 3.5x/8x, the bullet trace lasts one second instead of two, reserve ammo rises from 36 to 51, and the pump cycle drops from one second to 0.8.
• SMG-12: damage drops from 28 to 16, the magazine falls from 32 to 22, and maximum ammunition falls from 129 to 111.
• AR-15.50: damage drops from 67 to 59 and recoil increases, with separate first-shot and camera-speed changes for mouse-and-keyboard and controller.
• Smaller buffs: Kapkan damage rises from 60 to 62, Echo’s Sonic Burst refill falls from 16 to 15 seconds, SPSMG9 damage rises from 33 to 35, and Lion’s scan warning falls from 1.5 to 1.4 seconds.

The headline nerf is the SMG-12. Its lower damage, magazine, and total ammunition make long sprays far less forgiving. The Dokkaebi change is also structural rather than numerical: defenders now have a clearer way to stop an upload by breaking its connection before it completes.

Aruni loses the Muzzle Brake on the Mk 14 EBR, while Tubarão loses it on the AR-15.50. Mouse-and-keyboard first-shot multipliers also increase on the Mk 14 EBR and CSRX 300, so players should revisit recoil expectations instead of assuming the same opening shot behavior.

Advertisement

What changed on Villa?

Operation Split Fire uses a targeted update rather than a full Villa rework. The Living Room and Library bomb site moves into the basement, creating a new objective choice and changing how teams prepare the lower floor. The garage becomes interior space instead of an exterior approach, with surrounding layout changes intended to improve flow and drone routes.

Attackers should not treat the east-side garage as the same exposed entry from previous seasons. Defenders also need new reinforcement, rotation, and utility plans for the basement site. Stadium Alpha, Stadium Bravo, and House receive visual modernization, while the Shooting Range and tutorial get graphics updates.

Who can play Legend Division?

Legend Division is a mid-season, SoloQ-only playlist for top-ranked players. Ubisoft lists current Champion rank, Platinum rank in the previous season, positive reputation, and completed security requirements among the eligibility conditions. Players lock a region when they enter, while everyone can view the regional leaderboards.

• PC security: Secure Boot, Windows Memory Integrity (HVCI), and TPM 2.0 must be enabled.
• Verification: temporary administrator privileges are required so the game can verify those settings.
• Account security: two-step verification must use an authenticator app on the Ubisoft account.
• Top-100 reward: a next-season charm displaying the final leaderboard position, provided the player remains in the top 100.

Ubisoft has not given the exact opening date in the season details. Champion rank alone therefore does not create a September 1 queue; eligible players still have to wait for the mid-season activation and satisfy every security and reputation check.

How 3v3 Arcade and Wasteland Circuit work

The limited-time 3v3 Arcade playlist compresses Bomb into matches of no more than seven rounds, with the first team to four wins taking the match. The Preparation Phase lasts 30 seconds. There are no Operator bans, but Operator attrition prevents a team from reusing an Operator after winning a round with that character.

Wasteland Circuit is Siege’s first drone-racing event. Racers collect item balloons and boost balloons, then earn points based on finishing position across multiple races. Ubisoft describes it as a three-week event but does not publish the three calendar dates on the season page.

Operation Split Fire in official images

4 screenshots

Changes for beginners and everyday matches

• Reduced team damage: players below clearance level 10 deal less damage to teammates.
• Quick Match minimap: the minimap is now available in Quick Match and can be hidden in guidance settings.
• Clear House: Casino, Emerald Plains, Stadium 2020, Stadium Bravo, and House are the five modernized maps in the playlist.
• Field Training: the same five maps are added, together with Ram, Osa, Mozzie, and Brava as playable Operators.

The options menu also moves to a multi-level category structure with shorter controls and less scrolling. Ubisoft enables Adaptive Render Scaling by default on PC across graphics quality presets to improve frame-rate stability, but custom graphics settings remain available.

Quick Match now has the minimap by default, and actions that require holding a button receive a circular progress indicator. Surrender voting is reworked so the box remains available when a round ends suddenly, with surrender permitted when a team is behind in rounds or a teammate has been disconnected for at least six minutes.

What the Y11S3 patch addendum fixes

Ubisoft’s September 1 addendum lists Test Server fixes that ship with the Y11S3 update. AI training bots should now break Azami Kiba Barriers instead of trying to path around them, spawn correctly on Yacht in Clear House, and rappel at the intended speed. Several Shooting Range tutorial objectives are also fixed.

The notes also address a 3v3 Arcade crash when players choose the same Operators, missing horizontal grips in weapon customization, keyboard navigation in the Operator Guide, Pulse’s Cardiac Sensor not showing detected enemies, rough Montagne shield animations, and voice chat remaining active after being disabled in the main menu.

Operator price reductions

• Ram: 10,000 Renown or 240 R6 Credits.
• Skopos: 15,000 Renown or 360 R6 Credits.
• Denari: 20,000 Renown or 480 R6 Credits.

These are unlock-price reductions for older Operators and are separate from the Battle Pass window shown on the official Siege page.

Watch the official Operation Split Fire trailer

The official CGI trailer centers Noor’s answer to a shield push and establishes the season’s fire-and-gold visual identity. It is embedded from the verified Rainbow 6 YouTube channel. Balance values, playlist rules, and dates in this guide come from Ubisoft’s written season pages rather than visual inference from the trailer.

What Ubisoft has not dated yet

• Legend Division opening: mid-season is confirmed, but no exact date is listed.
• 3v3 Arcade window: limited-time status is confirmed, but the season page does not show its start and end dates.
• Wasteland Circuit dates: the event lasts three weeks, but the exact calendar window is not published on the season page.
• Download size: Ubisoft’s season details and patch addendum do not list one universal file size.

File size can differ by platform and installed content. Check the update screen on the device rather than treating a player screenshot from another platform as the official size for every system.

Rainbow Six Tactics is a different game

Operation Split Fire is a season for the competitive shooter Rainbow Six Siege. Ubisoft’s newly announced Rainbow Six Tactics is a separate single-player strategy game, so its release window, platforms, and turn-based systems do not apply to this Siege update.